


Through the eyes of Death

by Butterflyfish



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Angst, Canon/Non canon, Death, F/M, Gen, Unrequited Love, zombie AU where Death is an Angel
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-03-23
Updated: 2017-03-23
Packaged: 2018-10-09 06:41:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10406220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Butterflyfish/pseuds/Butterflyfish
Summary: They call me Death.You may call me Macha. It's pronounced like that poncey Chocolate coffee you people seem to be so fond of.My mother's name was Nyx. I am Valkyrie, I am Morrigan, I am Azrael, I am Moros and Ker.I am Death.And I am coming.Macha is an Angel of Death - one of several -  with a long list of names. Will she manage to bring all the souls home safely, or will her intrigue with one in particular be her undoing?





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know what this is, an idea, that grew. I don't even know where it came from. 
> 
> I have taken some extreme liberties with ancient myths and legends, please excuse me if you like the originals, but I like the idea of these being mixed up - that people got it all wrong when writing their poems and stories and plays .  
> So, yeah, enjoy.

 It's not how all the ancient books describe. I don't go to battle fields and choose who must die, I don't sit in wait at the end of your bed, pointing with a bony finger to warn you that your time is near. 

I receive a list, once a month, and I must work through this list in order. 28 names, each must die. Usually in the same area, the same group of people. A family, a group of friends. You know they say 'it comes in threes'? If it's death, it was probably me.

How they go, that used to be my choice. I would take pity on some, make it quick, or I might hear or see something terrible about another, and I would make the death fit. 

The long sleep.

The beginning of the end. 

But recently everything changed, **The Powers That Be** fucked up, royally, and now death isn't death as anyone knew it, and I'm stuck with a list of names, half of whom I'm sure I already downed once. 

It sucks. Working twice as hard and getting half as much done.

***

I didn't like the new order, let's get that out there right from the off. In the new order **The Powers That Be** decided, stupidly, as powerful councils tend to do, that since they fucked up so hard, Human's could choose who dies and how. 

Humans.

No offence but your race is least set up for such grandeur in the whole of the universe.

Still, it wasn't on me, who was I to complain? Huh, well, since you asked.

* * *

 I was standing in a tree with my heart in my throat as I watched my charges line up, kneeling, in front of _that man._

Don't get me wrong, I never get too emotionally attached. Death is a wonderful thing, not the hardship those who are scared of it expect, or imagine. It is beautiful and warm and light.

 _I_ am Beauty and Warmth and Light and I come to you and caress you and we go together onto the next plane. So there is no need for me to feel _sorry_ for my charges.

Well, rarely. 

But that day, I pitied them.

My list that month was dastardly. A wicked fate, if you believe in such things, had brought together a register of names that were closely connected. It was sickening, even for me, who knew that death was but the end of the beginning and the beginning of forever.

 So I watched, my heart beating almost outside of my body, my large, black, feathered wings tucked in tight to me, shivering with every pound of my life muscle. I watched and I waited for the toll in my head to ring out, telling me it was time. Time to stop the pain and suffering, time to take away the soul.

I had no idea that day I would be taking two.

They were listed on my sheet,

_Denise Cloyd_

_Abraham Ford_

_Glenn Rhee_

And so, it went on.

I had no idea how connected they were. But there knelt the next name on my list, flanked by the following and the following.           

And there sat the man who Denise was with when she felt my gentle caress upon her face, and the woman who looked right through me as I stood before her, whisking their friend away, flying her home.

All of them, kneeling in front of _that man._

The hideous gleeful man had chosen his victim, of course I knew it would be Abraham, but not who he was. Perched on the branch of the tree I waited with baited breath as much as everyone kneeling on the ground.

I was disgusted, and my heartstrings were wrenched, but such is my job, to wait, to watch, to retrieve.

there was a lot of chatter from _that man_. Before he swung the first blow with a weapon designed to make this already nasty process long and drawn. My breath hitched, and I waited for the bell in my mind, but it didn't come.

He laughed. Hard and gleeful, _that man_ laughed as he pounded again and again at my charge. 

I flew from my branch as if I might do something, stop the wretchedness, but I couldn't. 

I cried tears of blood as the row of my charges cried tears of saline over a man I didn't know, and never would. 

I waited but the bell didn't toll.

what was this madness?

Abraham now stood before me, a pale and frightened wisp of a thing compared to his human form. I smiled and reached for him, 

"you're safe now. Your pain and suffering are over. Come with me and you will never know suffering again" but I felt my smile falter, the toll still did not ring out.

Abraham's soul looked at me, confused. 

"What happens now?" He said without inflection. He seemed surprised at his own true voice. I opened my mouth to speak, but a ruckus ensued behind us, and I turned. 

It was about to happen again.

"don't watch" I warned, but Abraham's soul stood with me, stoic as the man himself had been even as he was beaten to a bloody pulp. 

He took my hand, no longer scared, and we watched as things unfolded.

***

never before had I been so glad to have a soul with me as I watched a death. 

  But never before had I needed it.

my wings fluttered, as they do when I'm nervous, and a single black feather broke free and floated towards the Asian in the line up. 

"Glenn?" The soul beside me asked, and I nodded sombrely. That must be him.

***

Still the bell wouldn't ring. I stood beside Abraham's white ghostly soul, and reached desperately for Glenn despite the bell sitting silent, but my hand passed through him, it wasn't time.

How could it not be? I looked up to the stars that were now sparkling around us, and I yelled frustrated at The Powers, in hopes they were listening. 

"This is unfair and cruel!" I screamed, my voice turning gravelly and hideous in my rage. Abraham's soul shrank back a little, but he didn't release my hand. 

My eyes fell upon the kneelers, all quietly sobbing, the light in their eyes dimmed to nothing, their distress oozing from their pores. I stifled a cry, hiccuped a breath.

Then Glenn was trying to speak. 

"His love" Abraham's soul whispered.

"I'll find you" Glenn made out, and a woman cried harder. I reached again as the bat crashed down on Glenn's head, and I grabbed him, I managed it! And I dragged him away from the body he once possessed.

"You're safe now" I started my speech, but his soul cut me off.

"no!" I looked at him, aghast, as he ripped himself from my touch and ran to the woman who was crying the most. 

"His love" Abraham's soul said again. 

Soulmates are uncommon, and I'd not dealt with them before. I had heard it was difficult to get one half of a soul bond off the earthly plane. I tried not to be impatient, but she couldn't see him, she thought he was gone. 

I huffedd a gentle sigh and Abraham and I walked to Glenn, standing behind a woman with short dark hair, I touched his shoulder and he shrugged me off. 

"let me take you to a place where you'll know no more suffering" I said gently in my most tinkling voice. Glenn's soul turned to me, angrily glowing bright and hot. 

"Is she there?" I shook my head.

"She will be. Eventually" 

"I'm not leaving her behind." 

Look, I have a job to do. There was unlikely to be a third death from my list that night, and Angels have other stuff to do, too. 

"Glenn" I used his human name, I always do. It's familiar and warm. "It's not her time. She knows how you feel, but if we don't go soon, you'll be stuck, and being stuck is a vision of Hell itself." At that the bell finally rang. It was time to leave. "Glenn" I tried again, and finally he looked at me, really saw me.

i seized the opportunity and ran my soft and pleasant fingers over his cheek. 

"You're safe, now." I smiled, and took his hand, and my souls and I flew on to the next plane.


	2. Chapter 2

When you are an Angel of Death, and you have received your list, several things can happen.

There might be a pull, like you're attached to a leash, and you follow that pull and arrive just in time to watch your charge pass over from living to death.

Or there might be a sound, a shout, a distant call. Your name or the name from the list, whispered delicately in your ear.

Sometimes, you just happen to be in the right place at the right time.

With so many faces from my recent history kneeling in the semi-circle I had witnessed, I decided on the fourth option, to hang around, wait it out. It can get boring, but one man kept catching my eye. I didn't know his name, didn't know if he was on my list, but I found myself compelled to follow him. The man who had jolted so suddenly and so shocked when Denise fell into my capable hands.

He was very forlorn. When I decided it was time to head back to earth I found him in something resembling a prison cell, where he lay as naked as the day he was born, crying quietly to himself. 

It was overwhelmingly sad and hard to watch. I reached out for him, but of course, if he was on my list it wasn't his time, and my hand passed straight through his grubby skin. He shivered, convulsed, and I drew my cold hands away. He was a large man, wide across the shoulders and down his arms, but he seemed so small in that cell. So small and so sad.

I sighed to myself and he looked up, as though he had heard me, or felt the draft of my breath on his naked skin. My breath caught, and he seemed to stare me right in the eye, but of course he couldn't see me, crouching there, arms hugging my leather clad knees, wings tucked in tight, scarlet hair half covering my face, my black and silver spear by my side. 

I had no doubt in who and what I was, invisible and voyeuristic, not then.

I stayed for days. I got neither the pull nor the call, so I stayed with him as he fell into a rhythm of crying, not sleeping, and eating the food brought to him by people outside his cell. The people who followed _that man._

  
He looked at me again, I was sure, dark and narrow blue eyes boring into me beneath his greasy dark bangs.  
But he can't have, he can't have.

* * *

 I left him. I couldn't stay forever, as much as I wanted to watch him until the end of time, and I felt the pull eventually, so I followed it, taking to the wing and flying over miles to a gated community.

To my surprise _that man_ was there (My face sneered at the sight of him, How could _**The Powers**_ put men like that in charge of death?!), and a woman was on the floor threatening the lady who had been with Denise. More familiar faces, I sighed, meeting the eyes of another of the Keres, she looked how I felt, tired of all the death there seemed to be just lately. She was talking softly to a soul which may very well have belonged in the gutted body on the floor.

But he was not my charge, and his gutless body was not my problem.

I was there for a lady called Olivia.

 _That man_ was talking, loudly. He loved the sound of his own voice. I watched him carefully, the air brimmed with the fear of those in awe of this man. The woman on the floor, a man crying off to one side. _That man_ was abominable and I found myself wishing he was one of the names on my list.

I'd pay for that, **_The Powers_** know everything, every feeling, every thought.

But I didn't care. For the first time in my existence, I wanted someone to die, hoped for their name to appear on my vellum sheet.

My face sneered, I couldn't help it. He was ordering another death and I knew 'Olivia' was the one, now where was she? I looked around, spying a scared woman on a porch with a boy. There.

I hurried to her, and as the shot rang out and her body fell I grabbed her.

"You're safe" I whispered, stroking her cheek. "You're safe now Olivia"

I took a final look around at the faces in that community, not doubting for a second that I would be back, at some point.

I took Olivia's hand and she gave out a warmth, a beauty, that overshadowed everything happening around us. This was a good soul. I was thankful. I squeezed her hand and flew her home.

* * *

 Soon after I was back with the man from the cell, the man who I couldn't seem to drag myself away from, who had knelt right alongside the human forms of Glenn and Abraham. Was he from that walled community, I wondered.

In a world where death was no longer always true, I guessed anything was possible.

He was riding a motorbike, fast and hazardous, and I flew right alongside him, he was worried, and I could understand.  
He was being followed, but I felt this wasn't a threat, more a camaraderie.

It was good to see him not crying, dressed, and lively. His face was determined and I could feel the steely need to get things done coming from him

They entered another walled community, different to the last, and I left them there. As he got off the bike and puffed an exasperated breath that revealed his narrow dark blue eyes, I stood and watched them. He was scared, but hard.

It had been a long day and I had already been called by **_The Powers._** soIt was going to be an even longer night, if such a thing existed on my plane.

I twitched my feathers, leaping into the air again, leaving a single black quill behind.

As I looked back, down below my feet, the man who intrigued me so bent and picked it up, then looked up at me flying high above him, wondering where the feather had fallen from.

Macha, I whispered down to him, the raven.

* * *

 

I was called home by my father. I suppose humans would call him a God, of sorts. The God of death as his daughters are the Angels.

But its not like the texts, He is no deathly doomed spirit who lives in the dark and gloomy pit of Hell where no light ever touches.

I can't explain enough, we live in a beautiful place, on a beautiful plane.

Still, Daddy, (snigger - what a term) one of _**The Powers**_  , ancient and wise, had me in for a meeting, and I knew in an instant what it would involve.

"You're becoming too invested." He said to me, though we didn't speak. All our communication was done telepathically. He rather bellowed inside my head, his mind-voice deep and rumbling. "What happens if he is not your charge, and you lose him to a sister, Macha?" I frowned at him, red eyebrows drawing close together crossly.

"He, Him, It, I am just intrigued. His face comes to me so often on my travels, how can I not be?" I clenched my fists. How dare Erebus make such assumptions of me. "I am not useless in the face of him. I am not in love." 

I was sent away. Love was a ridiculous thing to me, it made humans and gods and demons and angels alike turn stupid and witless, lacklustre and insipid. Great art works have never been made by the happy heart, but by the scorned, the lonely.

I was happy in my own darkness, and there would I stay. This human was an intrigue, and I fancied he saw me, some part of me, or felt me in the air. His dark and mysterious blue eyes saw into me. He was special.

 

That doesn't mean I loved him, or wanted to.


End file.
